r 


GIFT  ©F 


MR.  HILLARD'S  ADDRESS 


DELIVERED     BEFORE     THE 


MERCANTILE  LIBRARY  ASSOCIATION, 


AT    ITS 


THIRTIETH  ANNIVERSARY,  NOV.  13,  1850. 


THE    DANGERS    AND    DUTIES    OF    THE    MERCANTILE 
PROFESSION. 


AN 


ADDRESS 


DELIVERED    BEFORE    THE 


MERCANTILE  LIBRARY  ASSOCIATION, 


THIRTIETH    ANNIVERSARY,    NOVEMBER    13,    1850. 


BY 

GEORGE   S.   HILLARD 
V 


BOSTON: 
TICK  NOR     AND     FIELDS. 

M  DCCC  LIV. 


H 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1850,  by 

TICKNOR,  REED,  AND  FIELDS, 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts 


TIICRSTOX,  TORRT,  AND  EMERSON,  PRINTERS. 


Rooms  of  the  Mercantile  Library  Association, 

BOSTON,  NOVEMBER  19th,  1850. 
DEAR  SIR, 

I  have  the  pleasure  of  informing  you,  that,  at  a  meeting  of  the 
Board  of  Directors  of  the  Mercantile  Library  Association,  held 
Monday  evening,  18th  instant,  it  was  unanimously  voted,  that  the 
thanks  of  the  Association  be  presented  to  you,  for  the  able  and 
highly  instructive  Address  delivered  on  the  occasion  of  its  thirtieth 
anniversary,  and  that  a  copy  be  requested  for  publication. 

Hoping  that  you  will  comply  with  the  request,  I  have  the  honor 
to  remain,  with  sentiments  of  respect,  your  obedient  servant, 

HENRY    P.    CHAMBERLAIN, 

Corresponding  Secretary. 

Hon.  George  S.  Hillard. 


Court  Slrcct,  November  20,  1850. 
DEAR  SIR, 

The  Address,  a  copy  of  which  you  have  requested  for  publication, 
was  prepared  Math  exclusive  reference  to  the  position  and  claims  of 
the  young  men  composing  your  Association.  I  am  induced  to  com 
ply  with  your  request,  upon  the  assurance  of  those,  whose  judgment 
and  candor  I  hold  in  equal  respect,  that  the  ends  which  I  had  in 
view  in  writing  it  will  be  further  promoted  by  its  publication. 

With  my  best  wishes  for  the  prosperity  of  your  Association,  and 
for  the  health  and  happiness  of  its  members,  I  remain  your  friend 

and  obedient  servant, 

GEORGE    S.    HILLARD. 

Henry  P.  Chamberlain,  Esq. 


ADDUE  S  S. 


THE  various  employments  of  civilized  life  may 
be  divided  into  two  classes,  corresponding  to  the 
body  and  the  mind  in  man.  Trade  and  commerce 
minister  to  material  wants,  natural  or  artificial; 
science  and  literature,  to  intellectual  growth.  Thus, 
the  merchant  may  be  taken  as  the  representative  of 
outward  or  practical  life,  and  the  scholar,  of  inward 
or  intellectual  life.  In  this  division,  no  disparaging 
comparison  is  involved.  Each  class  of  employments 
has  its  peculiar  advantages  and  its  peculiar  dangers. 
The  ideal  merchant  is,  in  my  judgment,  nowise 
inferior  to  the  ideal  scholar.  Indeed,  as  each  ap 
proaches  the  highest  point  of  development,  they 
draw  nearer  and  nearer  towards  one  another,  as  the 
opposite  sides  of  a  pyramid,  far  apart  at  the  base, 
meet  at  the  top.  By  the  ideal  merchant,  I  mean  a 
man  acting,  but  capable  of  thinking;  by  the  ideal 
scholar,  a  man  thinking,  but  capable  of  acting. 


6 

Politics,  or  the  art  of  government,  in  this  age  of  the 
world,  includes  both  elements.  The  merchant  and 
the  scholar  each  contributes  something  to  the  com 
position  of  the  statesman.  He  must  be  able  to 
ascend  to  the  highest  generalizations  from  a  solid 
basis  of  carefully  selected  facts.  The  homely  details 
of  business,  as  well  as  the  laws  which  regulate  and 
control  its  great  movements,  must  be  familiar  to 
him.  Speculation  must  suggest  experiment,  and 
experiment  must  confirm  speculation. 

No  man  can  be  said  to  be  a  finished  man  who  has 
not  both  the  power  of  acting  and  the  power  of 
thinking ;  and  no  community  is  truly  powerful  and 
prosperous  which  has  not  a  fair  proportion  of  men  of 
action  and.  men  of  thought.  A  country  in  which 
all  men  are  either  engaged  in  the  acquisition  of 
property,  or  steeped  in  the  luxuries  which  property 
commands,  —  without  books,  without  scholars,  with 
out  ideas, — besides  being  the  dreariest  of  deserts  to 
the  spiritual  eye,  contains  within  itself  the  elements 
of  self-destruction,  and  is  in  constant  danger  of  be 
ing  shattered  to  pieces  by  the  explosive  force  of 
its  own  selfish  propensities.  So,  a  country  in  which 
the  intellectual  energies  of  the  people  find  no  practi 
cal  sphere,  which  is  rich  in  universities,  libraries,  and 
picture-galleries,  but  poor  in  merchants,  manufac 
turers,  and  engineers,  can  never  have  any  considera- 


ble  amount  of  constitutional  vigor,  but  is  always  in 
a  state  of  what  physicians  call  atony. 

The  world  at  this  moment  furnishes  illustrations 
of  each  of  these  positions.  It  is  one  of  the  felicities 
of  England,  that,  from  her  situation,  her  climate, 
her  soil,  her  mineral  wealth,  and  her  political  institu 
tions,  she  has  been  able  to  furnish  so  great  a  variety 
of  occupation  to  her  sons,  and  to  open  a  congenial 
sphere  to  every  form  of  energy  and  enterprise.  She 
has  had  universities,  scientific  associations,  philoso 
phers,  poets,  and  artists,  and,  at  the  same  time,  ships, 
colonies,  commerce,  mines,  and  manufactures.  Her 
literature  and  legislation  both  show  the  beneficial 
effects  of  this  blending  of  the  active  and  specula 
tive  elements.  The  literature  of  England  is  remark 
able,  not  only  for  its  variety  and  extent,  but  for 
its  pervading  characteristics  of  good  sense,  and  good 
taste,  which,  indeed,  is  nothing  more  than  good 
sense  applied  to  aesthetics.  It  is  an  eminently 
healthful  literature.  In  reading  the  books  of  Eng 
land,  we  are  walking  in  the  open  air,  with  the  sights 
and  sounds  of  Nature  around  us.  Her  writers  do  not 
look  at  life  exclusively  through  the  windows  of  a 
study.  As  the  curve  of  the  rocket  and  the  silvery 
plume  of  the  fountain  are  shaped  by  the  earth's  gravi 
ty,  so,  with  them,  the  most  daring  flights  of  imagina 
tion  and  the  most  adventurous  quests  of  the  specula- 


8 

tive  faculty  are  controlled  by  what  Bacon  calls  the 
wisdom  of  business.  Take  the  case  of  Shakspeare, 
the  greatest  name  in  their  literature,  —  perhaps  the 
greatest  name  in  all  literature.  He  had  been  an  act 
or  and  the  manager  of  a  theatre,  and  it  has  been  sur 
mised  that  he  had  passed  some  time  in  an  attorney's 
office.  Who,  that  reads  his  plays  with  any  attention, 
can  fail  to  perceive  the  benefit  of  this  practical  train 
ing?  Who  is  not  grateful  for  the  fact,  that  he  had 
been  obliged  to  humor  the  pit  and  rule  the  green 
room, — to  conciliate  great  men,  and  beat  down  the 
carpenter  and  the  scene-painter?  We  find  the  fruit 
of  all  this  experience  in  that  golden  good-sense,  that 
mellow  wisdom,  that  piercing  insight,  that  accurate 
portraiture,  that  loyalty  to  truth  and  nature,  for  which 
he  is  quite  as  remarkable  as  for  imaginative  genius. 

The  legislation  of  England,  like  that  of  every 
country  that  I  have  ever  heard  or  read  of,  has  been 
selfish;  it  has  not  always  been  enlightened,  but  it 
has  never  been  absurd  or  fantastic.  The  House  of 
Commons  wastes  little  either  of  time  or  power.  Its 
members  are  adverse  to  rhetoric  and  fiercely  intoler 
ant  of  abstractions.  You  will  hear  among  them 
little  fine  speaking,  but  much  sensible  talking. 
What  is  once  settled  there  is  settled  forever.  They 
will  endure  no  rigmarole  about  the  rights  of  man, 
and  the  eternal  fitness  of  things,  and  the  shades  of 


9 

Ilampden  and  Sidney.  Many  things  are  taken  for 
granted,  to  the  great  saving  of  time  and  strength. 
Provided,  too,  that  their  work  is  done,  they  care  very 
little  how  it  looks.  Acts  of  Parliament  are  often 
clumsily  drawn,  but  they  generally  hit  the  grievance 
aimed  at  between  wind  and  water.  Everything  is 
for  use,  and  nothing  for  show.  Parliament  is,  in 
short,  a  factory  for  the  making  of  laws,  and  they 
will  no  more  listen  to  a  professor's  discourse  on  the 
principles  of  legislation,  than  the  operatives  in  a  mill 
at  Lowell  would  leave  off  their  work  to  hear  a 
lecture  on  the  force  of  gravity  or  the  pressure  of 
fluids. 

Among  the  great  legislative  minds  of  England, 
Burke  is  a  striking  instance  of  the  combination  of 
the  speculative  and  practical  elements.  The  foun 
dations  of  his  mind  were  laid  in  good  sense,  sagacity, 
and  profound  knowledge  of  the  history,  legislation, 
and  resources  of  his  country;  and  upon  these  was 
reared  a  splendid  superstructure  of  imagination,  sen 
sibility,  and  passion.  With  him,  everything  was 
subjected  to  the  test  of  experience  and  observation. 
He  sought  not  for  an  abstract  or  ideal  good,  but  for 
that  which  was  suited  to  his  England  and  his  day. 
From  metaphysical  politicians,  who  reasoned  from 
general  principles  to  the  case  in  hand,  he  had  an 
excessive  and  unreasonable  aversion.  He  thought 


10 

deeply,  he  felt  intensely,  and  he  saw  far,  but  he 
always  stood  upon  the  firm  earth.  In  his  speech 
upon  Mr.  Fox's  East  India  bill,  he  said,  <  I  feel  an 
insuperable  reluctance  in  giving  my  hand  to  destroy 
any  established  institution  of  government  upon  a 
theory,  however  plausible  it  may  be.'  In  his  i  Re 
flections  on  the  Revolution  in  France,'  he  says,  '  The 
pretended  rights  of  these  theorists  are  all  extremes ; 
and  in  proportion  as  they  are  metaphysically  true, 
they  are  morally  and  politically  false.'  These  are 
representative  remarks,  and  furnish  the  key-note  of 
his  whole  political  life. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  has  been  one  of  the  misfor 
tunes  of  Germany  that  the  minds  of  her  people  have 
had  such  meagre  opportunities  of  practical  training, 
and  that  the  speculative  element  is  with  them  so 
predominant.  Government  is  for  the  most  part  ad 
ministered  by  functionaries.  There  is  but  little 
commerce,  and  no  great  amount  of  industrial  enter 
prise  of  any  kind.  Hence  her  ingenuous  young  men 
are  all  obliged  to  shut  themselves  up  in  libraries,  and 
take  to  the  writing  of  books,  as  if  the  chief  end  of 
man  were  to  print  and  publish.  Germany  is  thus  a 
land  of  scholars  and  learned  men,  to  whose  indomi 
table  researches  the  world  of  letters  and  science  is 
under  the  deepest  obligations.  But  I  think  the 
warmest  admirer  of  German  literature  will  admit, 


11 

that  it  would  be  more  vital  and  energetic,  if  it  were 
less  bookish ;  and  that  if  the  scholars  in  Germany 
lived  less  in  libraries,  they  would  write  better,  if  not 
so  much.  But  it  is  in  the  element  of  politics,  that 
the  unpractical  character  of  the  German  mind  is 
most  conspicuous.  It  is  deficient  in  political  con- 
structiveness  and  legislative  instinct.  No  people 
know  less  how  to  take  advantage  of  political  occa 
sions,  as  the  events  of  the  last  two  years  amply  show. 
While  they  are  deliberating  about  some  trumpery 
abstraction,  the  fleet  angel  of  opportunity  breaks 
from  their  grasp,  and  leaves  them  without  a  blessing. 
This  is  not  so  much  their  fault  as  their  misfortune. 
They  have  been  taught  to  be  statesmen  and  legis 
lators,  but  not  trained.  It  is  an  inexorable  fact,  that 
no  man  can  learn  to  swim,  without  first  going  into 
the  water. 

The  mercantile  class,  to  which  you  belong,  is 
exerting  an  important  and  an  increasing  influence 
upon  the  affairs  of  the  world.  Feudal  ideas  are  fast 
dying  out,  and  kings  and  nobles  are  losing  the  sub 
stantial  power  they  once  enjoyed,  and  turning  into 
pageants  and  ceremonies.  It  is  well  for  us  that  it  is 
so.  It  is  well  for  us  that  the  yardstick  is  displacing 
the  sword.  I  rejoice  in  the  growing  importance  of 
men  of  business,  as  an  historical  element,  because 
they  never  favor  the  costly  pastime  of  war.  The 


12 

pocket  is  always  on  the  side  of  peace.  And,  as  the 
influence  of  the  mercantile  class  is  always  exerted  to 
keep  men  from  quarrelling  with  one  another,  so  it 
also  tends  to  the  softening  of  national  antipathies 
and  the  melting  down  of  the  walls  of  estrangement 
which  separate  the  various  communities  of  mankind. 
Commercial  pursuits  naturally  liberalize  the  mind, 
and  emancipate  it  from  the  despotism  of  local  or 
provincial  prejudices.  The  enlightened  and  enter 
prising  merchant  is  always  a  traveller,  for  his 
thoughts  go  abroad,  though  he  himself  should  re 
main  at  home.  We  cannot  buy  of  men  and  sell  to 
them  without  its  leading  to  a  certain  kindliness  of 
feeling.  A  large  intercourse  with  the  world  teaches 
us  that  there  are  good  men  everywhere.  We  thus 
learn  the  meaning  of  the  word  humanity.  We 
become  conscious  that  there  is  a  great  human  fami 
ly,  whose  members  speak  many  languages  and  are 
of  various  aspects.  It  is  not  very  long  since  it  was 
common  to  hear  speakers  and  writers  in  England 
applying  the  phrase  *  our  natural  enemies '  to  the 
people  of  France ;  an  expression  which  no  one  could 
now  venture  to  use  without  incurring  the  imputation 
at  least  of  very  bad  taste.  The  merchants  and 
manufacturers  of  the  two  countries  have  had  no 
inconsiderable  influence  in  producing  this  improved 
state  of  feeling.  Man  is  never  the  natural  enemy  of 


13 

man,  and  a  vision  no  more  piercing  than  that  of 
enlightened  self-interest  is  quite  sufficient  to  discern 
this  truth.  Merchants  thus  belong  to  the  reforming 
and  progressive  class ;  and  their  efforts  in  this  direc 
tion  are  all  the  more  efficacious  because  they  are  in 
a  great  measure  unconsciously  exerted.  Each  one 
is  thinking  of  increasing  his  fortune,  of  enlarging  his 
business,  of  founding  a  family,  and  the  general  result 
is  an  improvement  in  social  life.  The  moral  lever 
which  they  wield  is  always  powerful,  because  the 
selfish  propensities  constitute  the  moving  power,  and 
the  laws  of  nature  the  fulcrum. 

But  my  purpose  is  not  to  treat  of  trade  and  com 
merce  in  their  external  relations,  but  rather  of  the 
way  in  which  they  act  upon  the  minds  and  characters 
of  those  who  pursue  them. 

Social  progress  and  material  civilization  lead,  of 
necessity,  to  a  great  variety  and  subdivision  of  pur 
suits.  The  struggle  for  subsistence  is  so  keen,  that  a 
man  consents  to  do  but  one  thing,  in  order  that  he 
may  do  that  in  the  best  manner.  The  whole  stream 
of  his  activity  runs  through  his  hand,  his  eye,  his 
tongue,  or  his  brain.  The  king  of  the  Sandwich 
Islands  is  said  to  wear,  on  state  occasions,  a  cloak 
made  of  feathers  of  which  only  two  are  found  in 
the  bird  that  produces  them.  In  like  manner, 
civilization  flutters  in  decorations  which  have  occu- 


14 

pied  only  a  fragment  or  a  fibre  of  a  man.  The 
weaver  is  an  animated  shuttle;  the  seamstress,  a 
living  needle ;  the  laborer,  a  spade  that  eats  and 
sleeps.  To  find  a  perfect  man,  we  must  take  a  brain 
from  one,  senses  from  another,  a  stomach  from  a 
third,  and  a  conscience  from  a  fourth.  Hence  arises 
a  new  and  important  relation,  —  the  relation  between 
a  man  and  his  work.  That  which  we  do  shapes  and 
colors  that  which  we  are.  Very  few  of  the  occupa 
tions  by  which  men  earn  their  bread  are  directly 
conducive  to  spiritual  and  intellectual  growth. 
Most  of  them  are  at  best  but  neutral  in  this  respect, 
and  few  of  them  are  free  from  certain  dwarfing  or 
deforming  tendencies,  which  a  man  sedulous  of  self- 
culture  will  foresee  and  guard  against. 

The  idea  of  exchange  lies  at  the  foundation  of 
that  vast  aggregation  of  energy  and  activity  which 
we  call  by  the  comprehensive  name  of  business. 
One  man  wants  what  another  man  has.  On  this 
simple  foundation  rests  the  colossal  fabric  of  trade. 
Indeed,  all  movement,  whether  in  things  spiritual  or 
things  material,  may  be  traced  back  to  inequality. 
"Were  all  minds  identical,  there  would  be  no  dis 
course,  no  argument,  no  teaching.  Were  there  no 
break  in  the  level  of  the  Merrimack,  there  would  be 
no  Lowell.  The  stream  runs,  the  breeze  blows,  the 
eloquent  man  speaks,  from  diversity.  So  it  is  with 


15 

commerce.  One  side  of  a  range  of  hills  produces 
corn,  and  another  wine ;  the  fig  is  in  the  valley,  the 
pine  on  the  mountains ;  the  North  has  firs,  the 
South,  jewels  and  spices.  Each  wants  what  it  has 
not.  Hence  come  the  merchant,  the  caravan,  the 
ship,  the  canal,  the  railway. 

The  business  of  a  merchant,  stated  in  its  baldest 
and  barest  form,  is  to  supply  men  with  what  they 
want,  but  have  not.  He  has  only  to  ascertain  what 
is  wanted,  and  where  it  may  be  found.  This  seems 
simple  enough;  but  when  it  comes  to  the  complicated 
and  fluctuating  necessities  of  an  advanced  period  of 
civilization,  it  will  be  admitted  that  a  man  can  hard 
ly  be  an  accomplished  merchant,  without  a  certain 
amount  of  energy,  enterprise,  knowledge,  sagacity, 
and  forecast.  But  here,  perhaps,  the  inevitable  cata 
logue  of  virtues  ceases.  There  are  many  graces  of 
mind  and  character  which  he  need  not  have,  and 
which  are  in  no  wise  essential  to  professional  suc 
cess.  He  need  not  have  religious  faith,  or  moral 
thoughtfulness,  or  generous  sentiments,  or  benevolent 
impulses,  or  intellectual  cultivation,  or  refined  tastes. 
In  short,  it  is  possible  to  be  a  successful  merchant, 
and  yet  be  sordid,  hard-hearted,  unprincipled,  nar 
row-minded,  selfish,  and  sensual.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  converse  of  the  proposition  is  equally  true. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  occupation  of  a  merchant 


16 

inconsistent  with  the  highest  intellectual  cultivation, 
the  grandest  moral  stature,  and  the  most  bounteous 
and  genial  affections. 

Thus,  my  young  friends,  the  mercantile  profession, 
to  which  you  have  dedicated  yourselves,  is  not  with 
out  its  dangers ;  nor  will  it  employ  all  your  faculties, 
or  furnish  you  with  all  the  elements  of  a  generous 
and  expanded  self-culture.  There  is  nothing  in  this 
statement  which  need  throw  a  shadow  upon  your 
thoughts.  It  is  no  more  than  the  common  lot ;  and 
in  your  position,  and  with  your  opportunities,  there 
is  much  to  aid  you  in  supplying  whatever  is  defec 
tive  and  counteracting  all  that  is  injurious. 

The  very  name  which  you  bear  implies  a  con 
sciousness  on  your  part  that  you  owe  a  debt  to 
yourselves,  as  well  as  to  your  profession.  You  call 
yourselves  the  Mercantile  Library  Association;  and 
these  very  words  intimate  a  laudable  purpose  of 
infusing  into  your  active  and  external  life  the  serene 
and  purifying  influence  of  liberal  studies.  If  the 
fruit  of  books  could  be  gathered  in  counting-rooms 
and  shops,  your  fine  library  would  be  a  superfluous 
luxury.  But  you  and  your  predecessors  have  col 
lected  it  for  use,  and  not  for  ostentation.  You  have 
felt  that  the  life  of  man  should  not  be  limited  to 
buying  and  selling,  the  keeping  of  accounts,  and  the 
watching  of  markets.  A  library  is  a  warehouse  in 


17 

which  the  precious  merchandise  of  knowledge  may 
be  had  for  the  asking.  The  reading  of  good  books 
will  cultivate  and  fertilize  such  portions  of  the  mind 
as  your  profession  abandons  to  neglect,  so  that 
your  intellectual  development  will  be  symmetrical 
and  harmonious.  There  is  no  condition  of  life 
which  is  not  bettered  by  knowledge.  Are  you  suc 
cessful?  Knowledge  will  crown  and  embellish  your 
prosperity,  as  the  capital  does  the  shaft.  It  will  save 
you  from  the  vanity  that  awakens  ridicule  and  the 
insolence  that  begets  envy.  Are  you  unsuccessful  ? 
It  will  dignify  your  adversity,  and  defend  you  against 
the  assaults  of  despair.  It  will  insure  you  the  sun 
shine  of  cheerfulness  and  the  tranquil  air  of  peace. 
Books  will  shield  you  from  the  narrowing  and  hard 
ening  influence  of  worldly  pursuits.  They  will  set 
you  upon  heights  of  contemplation,  and  broaden  the 
landscapes  of  the  mind.  The  actual  life  that  is 
around  us  is,  for  the  most  part,  a  struggle  for  subsist 
ence.  We  see  men,  as  a  general  rule,  under  the 
influence  of  the  selfish  appetites,  warped  and  belit 
tled  by  the  love  of  money  or  the  love  of  power, 
soiled  with  the  dust  and  sweat  of  ignoble  conflicts, 
drunk  with  success,  or  desperate  from  failure.  The 
dark  side  of  humanity  is  turned  towards  us.  Never 
to  see  any  thing  else  is  to  fall  into  a  habit  of  con 
tempt  for  our  kind  which  hardens  the  heart  and 
3 


18 

dwarfs  the  mind.  Beware  of  contempt;  it  is  a 
sharp  acid  that  corrodes  the  vessel  in  which  it  is 
kept.  Books  furnish  a  corrective  to  this  state  of 
feeling.  From  them  we  learn  that  man  is,  as  Sir 
Thomas  Browne  has  called  him,  '  a  noble  animal.' 
Through  them  we  contemplate  a  wider  stage,  actors 
of  more  regal  port  and  bearing,  more  heroic  passions, 
more  majestic  sorrows.  We  cannot  linger  in  the 
beautiful  creations  of  inventive  genius,  or  pursue  the 
splendid  discoveries  of  modern  science,  without  a 
new  sense  of  the  capacities  and  dignity  of  human 
nature,  which  naturally  leads  to  a  sterner  self-respect, 
to  manlier  resolves  and  higher  aspirations.  "We 
cannot  read  the  ways  of  God  to  man  as  revealed  in 
the  history  of  nations,  of  sublime  virtues  as  exem 
plified  in  the  lives  of  great  and  good  men,  without 
falling  into  that  mood  of  thoughtful  admiration, 
which,  though  it  be  but  a  transient  glow,  is  a  purify 
ing  and  elevating  influence  while  it  lasts.  The 
study  of  history  is  especially  valuable  as  an  antidote 
to  self-exaggeration.  It  teaches  lessons  of  humility, 
patience,  and  submission.  When  we  read  of  realms 
smitten  with  the  scourge  of  famine  or  pestilence,  or 
strewn  with  the  bloody  ashes  of  war,  of  grass  grow 
ing  in  the  streets  of  great  cities,  of  ships  rotting  at 
the  wharves,  of  fathers  burying  their  sons,  of  strong 
men  begging  their  bread,  of  fields  untilled  and  silent 


19 

workshops  and  despairing  countenances,  we  hear  a 
voice  of  rebuke  to  our  own  clamorous  sorrows  and 
peevish  complaints.  We  learn  that  pain  and  suffer 
ing  and  disappointment  are  a  part  of  God's  provi 
dence,  and  that  no  contract  was  ever  yet  made  with 
man  by  which  virtue  should  secure  to  him  temporal 
happiness. 

In  books,  be  it  remembered,  we  have  the  best  pro 
ducts  of  the  best  minds.  We  should  any  of  us 
esteem  it  a  great  privilege  to  pass  an  evening  with 
Shakspeare  or  Bacon,  were  such  a  thing  possible. 
But  were  we  admitted  to  the  presence  of  one  of 
these  illustrious  men,  we  might  find  him  touched 
with  infirmity,  or  oppressed  with  weariness,  or  dark 
ened  with  the  shadow  of  a  recent  trouble,  or  absorbed 
by  intrusive  and  tyrannous  thoughts.  To  us  the 
oracle  might  be  dumb,  and  the  light  eclipsed.  But 
when  we  take  down  one  of  their  volumes,  we  run 
no  such  risk.  Here  we  have  their  best  thoughts 
embalmed  in  their  best  words ;  immortal  flowers  of 
poetry,  wet  with  Castalian  dews,  and  the  golden 
fruit  of  wisdom  that  had  long  ripened  on  the  bough 
before  it  was  gathered.  Here  we  find  the  growth  of 
the  choicest  seasons  of  the  mind,  when  mortal  cares 
were  forgotten  and  mortal  weaknesses  were  subdued, 
and  the  soul,  stripped  of  its  vanities  and  its  passions, 
lay  bare  to  the  finest  effluences  of  truth  and  beauty. 


20 

We  may  be  sure  that  Shakspeare  never  out-talked 
his  Hamlet,  nor  Bacon  his  Essays.  Great  writers 
are  indeed  best  known  through  their  books.  How 
little,  for  instance,  do  we  know  of  the  life  of  Shaks 
peare,  but  how  much  do  we  know  of  him! 

In  that  most  interesting  and  instructive  book,  Bos- 
well's  Life  of  Johnson,  an  incident  is  mentioned 
which  I  beg  leave  to  quote  in  illustration  of  this 
part  of  my  subject.  The  Doctor  and  his  biographer 
were  going  down  the  Thames,  in  a  boat,  to  Green 
wich,  and  the  conversation  turned  upon  the  benefits 
of  learning,  which  Dr.  Johnson  maintained  to  be  of 
use  to  all  men.  " '  And  yet,'  said  Boswell  <  people 
go  through  the  world  very  well,  and  carry  on  the 
business  of  life  to  good  advantage,  without  learning.' 
'  Why,  Sir,'  replied  Dr.  Johnson,  '  that  may  be  true 
in  cases  where  learning  cannot  possibly  be  of  any 
use ;  for  instance,  this  boy  rows  us  as  well  without 
learning,  as  if  he  could  sing  the  song  of  Orpheus  to 
the  Argonauts,  who  were  the  first  sailors.'  He  then 
called  to  the  boy,  '  What  would  you  give,  my  lad,  to 
know  about  the  Argonauts?'  l  Sir,'  said  the  boy, 
<I  would  give  what  I  have.'  Johnson  was  much 
pleased  with  this  answer,  and  we  gave  him  a  double 
fare.  Dr.  Johnson  then  turning  to  me,  *  Sir,'  said  he, 
« a  desire  of  knowledge  is  the  natural  feeling  of  man 
kind;  and  every  human  being,  whose  mind  is  not 


21 

debauched,  will  be  willing  to  give  all  that  he  has  to 
get  knowledge.' "  * 

This  conversation  occurred  in  the  year  1763.  The 
boy  that  rowed  Dr.  Johnson  and  his  friend  down 
the  river  that  day  had  little  opportunity  to  acquire 
the  knowledge  which  he  coveted,  and  was  doubtless 
doomed  to  a  life  of  constant  toil  and  hopeless  igno 
rance.  But  it  is  pleasant  to  think  that  the  son  of  a 
waterman  plying  at  this  moment  on  our  own  river 
Charles,  with  similar  aspirations,  would  find  books 
and  schools  and  intellectual  opportunity,  and  might 
learn  who  Orpheus  and  the  Argonauts  were  ;  and  if 
he  did  not  row  any  better,  he  would  row  none  the 
worse,  for  such  knowledge. 

For  the  knowledge  that  comes  from  books  I  would 
claim  no  more  than  it  is  fairly  entitled  to.  I  am 
well  aware  that  there  is  no  inevitable  connection 
between  intellectual  cultivation,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  individual  virtue  or  social  well-being,  on  the 
other.  '  The  tree  of  knowledge  is  not  the  tree  of 
life.'  I  admit  that  genius  and  learning  are  some 
times  found  in  combination  with  gross  vices,  and 
not  unfrequently  with  contemptible  weaknesses,  and 
that  a  community  at  once  cultivated  and  corrupt 
is  no  impossible  monster.  But  it  is  no  overstate- 


Boswell's  Johnson,  II.  245,  Murray's  ed.  1835. 


22 


ment  to  say,  that,  other  things  being  equal,  the  man 
who  has  the  greatest  amount  of  intellectual  resources 
is  in  the  least  danger  from  inferior  temptations ;  if 
for  no  other  reason,  because  he  has  fewer  idle  mo 
ments.  The  ruin  of  most  men  dates  from  some 
vacant  hour.  Occupation  is  the  armor  of  the  soul, 
and  the  train  of  Idleness  is  borne  up  by  all  the  vices. 
I  remember  a  satirical  poem  in  which  the  Devil  is 
represented  as  fishing  for  men,  and  adapting  his 
baits  to  the  taste  and  temperament  of  his  prey ;  but 
the  idler,  he  said,  pleased  him  most,  because  he  bit 
the  naked  hook.  To  a  young  man  away  from  home, 
friendless  and  forlorn  in  a  great  city,  the  hours  of 
peril  are  those  between  sunset  and  bed-time,  for  the 
moon  and  stars  see  more  of  evil  in  a  single  hour 
than  the  sun  in  his  whole  day's  circuit.  The  poet's 
visions  of  evening  are  all  compact  of  tender  and 
soothing  images.  It  brings  the  wanderer  to  his 
home,  the  child  to  his  mother's  arms,  the  ox  to  his 
stall,  and  the  weary  laborer  to  his  rest.  But  to  the 
gentle-hearted  youth  who  is  thrown  upon  the  rocks 
of  a  pitiless  city,  and  stands  '  homeless  amid  a 
thousand  homes,'  the  approach  of  evening  brings 
with  it  an  aching  sense  of  loneliness  and  desolation, 
which  comes  down  upon  the  spirit  like  darkness 
upon  the  earth.  In  this  mood,  his  best  impulses 
become  a  snare  to  him,  and  he  is  led  astray  because 


23 

he  is  social,  affectionate,  sympathetic,  and  warm 
hearted.  If  there  be  a  young  man* thus  circum 
stanced  within  the  sound  of  my  voice,  let  me  say  to 
him  that  books  are  the  friends  of  the  friendless,  and 
that  a  library  is  the  home  of  the  homeless.  A  taste 
for  reading  will  always  carry  you  into  the  best  pos 
sible  company,  and  enable  you  to  converse  with  men 
who  will  instruct  you  by  their  wisdom  and  charm 
you  by  their  wit,  who  will  soothe  you  when  fretted, 
refresh  you  when  weary,  counsel  you  when  perplex 
ed,  and  sympathize  with  you  at  all  times.  Evil 
spirits,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  \vere  exorcised  and 
driven  away  by  bell,  book,  and  candle;  —  you  want 
but  two  of  these  agents,  the  book  and  the  candle. 

In  the  use  of  books  there  is  room  for  much  dis 
crimination.  Books  themselves  are  of  various  class 
es  ;  some  are  good,  some  are  bad,  and  many  are 
neither  good  nor  bad.  Some  are  to  be  studied,  some 
to  be  read,  and  some  to  be  thrown  into  the  fire. 
The  profusion  of  books  at  the  present  time,  and  the 
ease  with  which  they  may  be  procured,  I  look  upon 
as  by  no  means  an  unmixed  good.  There  is  a  great 
deal  of  trash  current  in  the  form  of  cheap  literature, 
which,  like  cheap  confectionary,  is  at  once  tempting 
and  pernicious.  Cheap  as  these  books  are  in  ap 
pearance,  most  of  them  would  be  dear  at  nothing  at 
all.  Especially  is  this  true  of  the  swarms  of  novels, 


24 

of  English  and  French  manufacture,  which  come 
warping  upon  every  eastern  wind,  most  of  them 
worthless,  and  many  of  them  worse  than  worthless. 
If  you  have  any  purpose  of  self-culture,  one  of  your 
first  duties  is  resolutely  to  abstain  from  such  books, 
as  you  would  from  opium  or  brandy.  But  the  pro 
miscuous  reading,  without  purpose  and  without 
method,  of  books  in  themselves  good,  is  little  better 
than  an  intellectual  pastime.  Of  two  young  men 
of  equal  capacity,  suppose  that  one  occupies  himself 
for  a  certain  period  in  light  reading  of  a  miscella 
neous  character,  and  the  other  devotes  the  same  time 
to  the  vigorous  study  of  one  or  two  works  requiring 
close  attention  and  continuous  thought,  such  as  But 
ler's  Analogy,  Smith's  Wealth  of  Nations,  Locke's 
Essay  on  the  Human  Understanding,  or  Mill's  Logic, 
the  amount  of  intellectual  benefit  derived  by  the 
two  will  be  greatly  in  favor  of  the  latter.  The 
former  will  have  gained  merely  a  crowd  of  hetero 
geneous  impressions,  lying  in  confused  masses  in  his 
memory,  like  the  shreds  and  patches  of  a  rag-bag, 
while  the  other  will  have  been  through  an  athletic 
course  of  mental  discipline,  by  which  every  faculty 
is  invigorated.  Beware  of  the  man  of  one  book, 
says  a  Latin  proverb.  He  knows  no  more  than  that, 
but  that  he  knows  thoroughly.  Let  me  commend 
to  every  young  man  who  hears  me  to  form  the  habit 


25 

of  reading  with  a  definite  object,  and  with  concen 
trated  attention,  and  not  to  roam  over  a  library  as 
one  strolls  through  a  garden,  pitching  upon  books 
because  there  is  something  taking  in  the  titles,  or 
because  the  contents  have  an  inviting  look  as  we 
turn  over  the  leaves.  Be  content  to  be  entirely  ig 
norant  of  some  things,  in  order  that  you  may  know 
other  things  well.  It  is  better  to  know  everything 
of  something,  than  something  of  everything.  Study, 
says  Cicero,  —  and  no  man  ever  had  a  better  right 
to  define  study  than  he,  for  no  man  ever  studied 
harder,  —  is  the  intense  and  assiduous  occupation  of 
the  mind  applied  to  some  subject  with  earnest  good 
will.*  One  hour  of  such  study  is  worth  a  day  of 
listless  dawdling  over  a  shelf  of  books. 

Men  engaged  in  business  and  with  a  taste  for 
reading  are  apt  to  underrate  their  own  intellectual 
advantages,  and  to  overrate  those  of  men  with  whom 
literature  or  science  is  a  profession.  Especially  do 
they  magnify  the  benefits  of  what  is  commonly  call 
ed  a  liberal  education,  which  means  a  residence  of  a 
certain  number  of  years  within  the  walls  of  a  college. 
For  men  of  learning  and  learned  institutions  I  have 
a  sincere  respect;  but  they  have  not,  nor  do  they 

*  *  Studium  est  animi  assidua  et  vehemens  ad  aliquam  rem  appli- 
cata  inagna  cum  voluntate  occupatio.'  —  Cic.  De  Inventione,  Lib.  I. 
c.  25. 

4 


26 

pretend  to  have,  any  patent  machinery  for  the  manu 
facture  of  knowledge.  To  breathe  the  air  of  Cam 
bridge  for  a  given  period  will  not  make  a  man  a 
scholar.  Learning  there,  as  everywhere  else,  is 
acquired  by  hard  work,  —  by  the  book  and  the  brain. 
Unquestionably  it  is  an  advantage  to  pursue  a  syste 
matic  course  of  study  under  the  guidance  of  learned 
and  accomplished  men ;  but,  after  all,  the  best  part 
of  what  a  young  man  brings  away  from  college  is 
what  he  has  done  and  acquired  for  himself.  The 
word  education  comprises  two  distinct  things ;  one, 
the  accumulation  of  knowledge,  and  the  other,  the 
training  of  the  faculties ;  and,  of  the  two,  the  latter 
is  the  more  important.  That  is  the  best  education, 
as  a  general  rule,  which  best  fits  a  man  to  discharge 
the  duties  to  which  he  is  destined.  So  far  as  the 
acquisition  of  knowledge  is  concerned,  the  young 
men  at  college  have  the  advantage  of  you ;  but  not, 
of  necessity,  so  far  as  the  training  of  the  faculties 
is  concerned.  Two  youths,  for  instance,  of  the  same 
age  leave  school  at  the  same  time,  and  one  enters 
college  and  the  other  goes  into  a  counting-room  in 
Boston.  And  let  us  suppose  them  equally  conscien 
tious  and  equally  disposed  to  make  the  best  use  of 
their  opportunities.  The  collegian  works  hard,  learns 
much,  and  acquires  honorable  distinction,  but  in  the 
mean  time  he  has  perhaps  lost  his  health;  for,  so 


27 

far  as  my  observation  goes,  I  should  say  that  one 
quarter,  at  least,  of  the  young  men  who  are  educated 
at  our  colleges  leave  them  with  impaired  health. 
From  the  recluse  life  which  he  has  led,  he  is  likely 
to  have  awkward  manners  and  an  unprepossessing 
address.  From  not  having  been  trained  to  habits  of 
self-control,  he  is  perhaps  impatient  of  contradiction, 
and  needlessly  sensitive.  He  is  probably  conceited, 
possibly  pedantic,  and  pretty  sure  to  want  that  sixth 
sense  which  is  called  tact.  He  knows  much  of  books, 
but  little  of  men  or  of  life,  and  from  mere  confusion 
of  mind  incurs  the  reproach  of  weakness  of  char 
acter.  On  the  other  hand,  the  lad  who  enters  a 
counting-room  finds  himself  perhaps  the  youngest 
member  of  a  large  establishment,  and  whatever  of 
Conceit  he  may  have  brought  from  the  village  acad 
emy  is  soon  rubbed  out  of  him.  He  learns  to  obey, 
to  submit,  and  to  be  patient;  to  endure  reproof 
without  anger,  and  to  bear  contradiction  with  good- 
humor.  He  is  obliged  to  keep  his  wits  about  him,  to 
decide  quickly,  to  have  accurate  eyes  and  truthful  ears, 
to  learn  that  there  are  just  sixty  minutes  in  an  hour, 
and  just  one  hundred  cents  in  a  dollar.  He  is  com 
pelled  to  bear  and  forbear,  to  resist  temptation,  to 
struggle  down  rebellious  impulses,  and  to  put  on  the 
armor  of  a  brave  silence.  The  hours  of  his  day 
come  freighted  with  lessons  of  self-reliance  and  self- 


28 

command,  and  the  grain  of  his  character  grows  firm 
under  the  discipline  of  life. 

Thus,  when  we  come  to  take  an  account  of  what 
the  young  scholar  and  the  young  merchant  have 
respectively  acquired,  the  preponderance  is  not  so 
decidedly  in  favor  of  the  young  scholar.  If  the  one 
has  gained  the  more  knowledge,  the  other  has  been 
through  the  more  training.  The  one  has  read  more 
books,  but  the  other  can  do  more  things.  Each  has 
what  the  other  wants.  Perhaps,  in  stating  this 
parallel,  I  have  drawn  the  picture  of  the  merchant 
too  much  in  light,  and  that  of  the  scholar  too  much 
in  shadow;  but  illustrations  are  not  presented  upon 
affidavit.  It  is  my  deliberate  opinion,  that  a  man 
engaged  in  active  pursuits,  if  he  have  studious  tastes 
and  industrious  habits,  is  most  favorably  circum 
stanced  for  the  acquisition  of  serviceable  knowledge. 
He,  be  it  remembered,  can  never  fall  into  the  dis 
tempers  and  infirmities  of  learning.  He  can  never 
become  a  pedant,  a  bookworm,  or  a  dreamer.  His 
practical  training  will  give  directness,  efficacy,  and 
convergence  to  his  attainments.  His  knowledge 
will  bear  the  current  stamp,  and  always  pass  for 
what  it  is  worth.  His  learning  will  be  packed 
in  convenient  parcels.  Solitude  is  the  nurse  of 
genius  ;  but  character,  that  power  which  is  so  easy 
to  recognize  and  so  hard  to  define,  —  which  like  the 


29 

milky-way  in  the  heavens,  is  a  blending  of  beneficent 
and  nameless  lights,  —  is  the  result  of  wide  and 
varied  intercourse  with  men,  and  of  large  experience 
in  the  chances  and  changes  of  life.  When  the  orna 
ments  of  learning  are  reared  upon  the  firm  founda 
tion  of  a  vigorous  character,  when  the  graces  of 
scholarship  are  added  to  a  resolute  spirit  and  an 
energetic  will,  and  when  we  see,  to  borrow  the  lan 
guage  of  Bacon,  'a  conjunction  like  unto  that  of 
the  two  highest  planets,  Saturn,  the  planet  of  rest 
and  contemplation,  and  Jupiter,  the  planet  of  civil 
society  and  action,'  we  have  a  rare,  a  noble,  but  not 
an  impossible,  combination. 

I  have  thus  far  spoken  rather  of  the  short-comings  of 
your  profession  than  of  its  dangers.  But  besides  that 
it  will  not  furnish  your  minds  with  all  the  food  that 
is  convenient  for  them,  it  has  elements,  or  at  least 
tendencies,  which  it  becomes  you  to  guard  against, 
as  not  favorable  to  moral  progress  and  the  growth 
of  the  character.  I  have  left  myself  but  little  space 
for  this  branch  of  my  subject,  and  can  only  touch 
upon  one  or  two  prominent  considerations. 

We  are  all  inclined  to  pursue  too  keenly,  and  to 
value  too  highly,  what  is  called  success  in  life,  which 
means  a  good  estate,  a  distinguished  social  position, 
power,  influence,  and  consideration.  All  the  ele 
ments  that  mould  the  growing  mind  tend  to  strength- 


30 

en  this  passion.  Open  the  common  biographies 
which  are  written  for  our  children,  and  what  do  you 
find  set  down  in  them  ?  This  man,  when  he  was  a 
boy,  was  docile,  diligent,  and  frugal;  he  studied 
hard;  he  was  never  idle,  and  never  naughty;  he 
made  friends ;  he  acquired  knowledge ;  he  laid  up  all 
the  money  that  he  earned.  And  what  was  the  re 
sult?  He  became  prosperous  and  powerful  and  rich; 
he  held  high  offices  and  enjoyed  great  honors,  and 
was  esteemed  and  exalted.  If  you  do  likewise,  you 
will  be  what  he  was,  and  gain  what  he  gained.  This 
is  but  another  form  of  appealing  to  the  love  of  ex 
celling,  rather  than  the  love  of  excellence,  —  that 
inferior  motive,  which,  though  it  may  quicken  the 
faculties,  dims  the  beauty  of  the  soul.  I  confess, 
that  increasing  years  bring  with  them  an  increasing 
respect  for  men  who  do  not  succeed  in  life,  as  those 
words  are  commonly  used.  Heaven  has  been  said 
to  be  a  place  for  those  who  have  not  succeeded  upon 
earth;  and  it  is  surely  true  that  celestial  graces  do 
not  best  thrive  and  bloom  in  the  hot  blaze  of  worldly 
prosperity.  Ill-success  sometimes  arises  from  a  su 
perabundance  of  qualities  in  themselves  good, —  from 
a  conscience  too  sensitive,  a  taste  too  fastidious,  a 
self-forgetfulness  too  romantic,  a  modesty  too  retiring. 
I  will  not  go  so  far  as  to  say,  with  a  living  poet,  that 
'  the  world  knows  nothing  of  its  greatest  men,'  but 


31 

there  are  forms  of  greatness,  or  at  least  of  excellence, 
which  i  die  and  make  no  sign ' ;  there  are  martyrs 
that  miss  the  palm,  but  not  the  stake ;  heroes  without 
the  laurel,  and  conquerors  without  the  triumph. 

In  the  mercantile  profession,  the  acquisition  of 
property  is  the  obvious  index  of  success.  A  success 
ful  merchant  is  a  rich  merchant.  The  two  ideas  can 
hardly  be  disjoined.  Thus  the  universal  passion  for 
the  prizes  of  life  is  apt,  in  your  case,  to  take  its 
lowest  form,  that  of  the  love  of  money.  I  would 
hold  up  no  fanatical  or  ascetic  views  of  life  for  your 
admiration  and  applause.  Wealth  brings  noble 
opportunities,  and  competence  is  a  proper  object  of 
pursuit;  but  wealth  and  even  competence  may  be 
bought  at  too  high  a  price.  Wealth  itself  has  no 
moral  attribute.  It  is  not  money,  but  the  love  of 
money,  which  is  the  root  of  all  evil.  It  is  the  rela 
tion  between  wealth  and  the  mind  and  the  character 
of  its  possessor,  which  is  the  essential  thing.  It  is 
the  passionate,  absorbing,  and  concentrated  pursuit 
of  wealth, —  the  surrendering  of  the  whole  being  to 
one  despotic  thought,  —  the  starving  of  all  the  nobler 
powers  in  order  to  glut  one  fierce  and  clamorous 
appetite, —  against  which  I  would  warn  you.  This 
form  of  idolatry  will  not  only  check  intellectual 
growth,  but  it  is  adverse  to  all  the  delicacies  and 
refinements  of  virtue.  I  know  that  there  is  a  certain 


32 

coarse  morality  which  draws  its  nutriment  from  the 
soil  of  its  dustiest  heart.  I  know  that  to  steal  and 
commit  forgery  and  swindle  lead,  in  the  long 
run,  to  poverty,  as  well  as  to  shame.  But  there  is 
a  border-land  between  unblushing  knavery  and  vir 
gin  honesty,  into  which  successful  forays  may  be 
made  under  the  cloud  of  night  and  secrecy.  We 
say  that  honesty  is  the  best  policy,  but  no  man  was 
ever  honest  who  acted  from  mere  policy;  and  it  is 
also  not  true  that  the  best  honesty  is  the  best  policy. 
The  most  serviceable  honesty,  like  the  most  current 
coin,  is  that  in  which  the  fine  gold  of  virtue  is 
mingled  with  the  alloy  of  worldly  thrift.  The  most 
successful  man  of  business,  other  things  being  equal, 
is  he  whose  habitual  course  of  dealing  is  so  far 
upright  as  to  admit  of  occasional  slight  deviations, 
and  thus  give  the  color  of  integrity  to  acts  in  them 
selves  doubtful.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  a  '  losing 
honesty,'  which  never  deliberates  and  never  parleys, 
which  is  as  pure  as  the  snow  '  that's  bolted  by  the 
northern  blast  twice  o'er ' ;  an  honesty  sometimes 
crowned  with  brilliant  success,  but  more  commonly 
dwelling  with  modest  fortunes  and  a  lowly  estate. 

Let  me  also  caution  you  against  too  exclusive  a 
devotion  to  your  profession,  upon  grounds  connected 
with  the  growth  of  the  mind,  and  its  consequent 
capacity  alike  for  improvement  and  enjoyment.  We 


33 

are  all  in  danger  of  becoming  {  subdued  to  what  we 
work  in,  like  the  dyer's  hand.'  With  men  engaged  in 
some  one  absorbing  pursuit,  the  accidental  is  always 
encroaching  upon  the  essential,  and  the  part  is  eat 
ing  up  the  whole.  In  manual  occupations  where 
only  one  set  of  muscles  is  exercised,  a  partial  defor 
mity  ensues,  and  those  which  are  unused  lose  in 
time  their  power  of  action.  The  mind,  too,  is  in 
like  manner  affected  by  partial  paralysis  and  partial 
distortion.  This  is  a  world  of  inflexible  compensa 
tions.  Nothing  is  ever  given  away,  but  every  thing 
is  bought  and  paid  for.  If,  by  exclusive  and  absolute 
surrender  of  ourselves  to  material  pursuits,  we  mate 
rialize  the  mind,  we  lose  that  class  of  satisfactions  of 
which  the  mind  is  the  region  and  the  source.  A 
young  man  in  business,  for  instance,  begins  to  feel 
the  exhilarating  glow  of  success,  and  deliberately 
determines  to  abandon  himself  to  its  delirious  whirl. 
He  says  to  himself,  'I  will  think  of  nothing  but 
business  till  I  shall  have  made  so  much  money,  and 
then  I  will  begin  a  new  life.  I  will  gather  round  me 
books  and  pictures  and  friends.  I  will  have  know-? 
ledge,  taste,  and  cultivation,  —  the  perfume  of  schol 
arship,  and  winning  speech,  and  graceful  manners. 
I  will  see  foreign  countries,  and  converse  with  ac 
complished  men.  I  will  drink  deep  of  the  fountains 
of  classic  lore.  Philosophy  shall  guide  me ;  history 


34 


shall  instruct,  and  poetry  shall  charm  me.  Science 
shall  open  to  me  her  world  of  wonders.  I  shall  then 
remember  my  present  life  of  drudgery  as  one  recalls 
a  troubled  dream  when  the  morning  has  dawned.' 
He  keeps  his  self-registered  vow.  He  bends  his 
thoughts  downward  and  nails  them  to  the  dust. 
Every  power,  every  affection,  every  taste,  except 
those  which  his  particular  occupation  calls  into  play, 
is  left  to  starve.  Over  the  gates  of  his  mind  he 
writes  in  letters  which  he  who  runs  may  read,  '  No 
admittance  except  on  business.'  In  time  he  reaches 
the  goal  of  his  hopes;  but  now  insulted  Nature 
begins  to  claim  her  revenge.  That  which  was  once 
unnatural  is  now  natural  to  him.  The  enforced 
constraint  has  become  a  rigid  deformity.  The 
spring  of  his  mind  is  broken.  He  can  no  longer  lift 
his  thoughts  from  the  ground.  Books  and  know 
ledge  and  wise  dircourse,  and  the  amenities  of  art, 
and  the  cordial  of  friendship,  are  like  words  in  a 
strange  tongue.  To  the  hard,  smooth  surface  of  his 
soul,  nothing  genial,  graceful,  or  winning  will  cling. 
He  cannot  even  purge  his  voice  of  its  fawning  tone, 
or  pluck  from  his  face  the  mean  money-getting  mask 
which  the  child  does  not  look  at  without  ceasing  to 
smile.  Amid  the  graces  and  ornaments  of  wealth, 
he  is  like  a  blind  man  in  a  picture-gallery.  That 
which  he  has  done  he  must  continue  to  do.  He 


35 

must  accumulate  riches  which  he  cannot  enjoy,  and 
contemplate  the  dreary  prospect  of  growing  old 
without  anything  to  make  age  venerable  or  attrac 
tive  ;  for  age  without  wisdom  and  without  knowledge 
is  the  winter's  cold  without  the  winter's  fire. 

As  we  are  all  too  much  given  to  make  an  idol  of 
success,  so  we  shape  our  lives  with  reference  to  this 
worship.  In  our  calculations,  we  lay  aside  the  ad 
verse  chances.  Hence,  if  we  do  not  achieve  success, 
we  are  apt  to  fall  into  gloomy  despair,  or  bitter  re 
pining,  or  heart-corroding  envy.  The  self-exaggera 
tion  of  adversity  is  quite  as  dangerous  to  the  health 
of  the  soul  as  the  self-exaggeration  of  prosperity. 
But  though  fortune  and  power  are  desirable  things, 
yet  more  desirable  is  that  mood  of  mind  which  can 
see  them  denied  without  a  murmur.  My  young 
friends,  these  considerations  come  close  home  to  you. 
You  are  aware  of  the  inexorable  statistics  of  trade 
and  commerce.  You  know  how  few  there  are  that 
have  not,  at  some  period  in  the  course  of  their 
business  life,  encountered  disaster  and  embarrass 
ment.  You  know  how  many  there  are,  that,  after 
long  struggling  with  adverse  fortune,  have  at  last 
thrown  up  their  hands,  and  declined  into  a  recluse 
condition,  and  given  themselves  over  to  dumb  despair. 
You  are  all  looking  forward  with  hope  to  the  future, 
and  already,  in  anticipation,  grasping  the  prizes  of 


36 

life.  But  as  the  past  has  been,  the  future  will  be. 
Success  and  failure  will  be  distributed  among  you  in 
the  same  proportion  as  among  your  predecessors. 
Are  you  prepared  to  meet  the  drawing  of  a  blank  in 
the  lottery  of  life?  Can  you  stand  and  wait,  and 
yet  feel  that  you  are  still  serving?  Have  you 
thought  of  furnishing  yourselves  with  the  moral  and 
mental  resources  which  will  enable  you  to  rise  supe 
rior  to  disappointment  and  disaster,  and  to  sit  down 
contentedly,  if  need  be,  with  poverty.  "We  shrink 
from  poverty  with  unmanly  weakness.  We  exag 
gerate  its  terrors,  as  we  exaggerate  the  attractions  of 
wealth.  To  our  morbid  apprehensions,  it  includes 
the  stingf  of  shame,  the  burden  of  self-reproach,  the 
gloom  of  solitude,  and  the  anguish  of  a  broken  spirit. 
There  is,  indeed,  a  pitiless  and  soul-crushing  poverty, 
which  binds  and  seals  the  heart  with  an  arctic  frost, 
and  shuts  out  the  light  of  hope,  and  tries  the  temper 
of  love,  and  steals  from  childhood  its  blessed  prero 
gative  of  careless  content,  and  plants  by  the  side  of 
the  cradle  the  lacerating  thorns  of  life;  but  into  this, 
no  man  in  our  country,  of  average  capacity,  need 
fall,  except  from  his  vices.  There  is  also  a  milder 
and  serener  form  of  poverty,  the  nurse  of  manly 
energy  and  heaven-climbing  thoughts,  attended  by 
love  and  faith  and  hope,  around  whose  steps  the 
mountain  breezes  blow,  and  from  whose  countenance 


37 

all  the  virtues  gather  strength.  Look  around  you 
upon  the  distinguished  men  that  in  every  department 
of  life  guide  and  control  the  times,  and  inquire  what 
was  their  origin  and  what  were  their  early  fortunes. 
Were  they,  as  a  general  rule,  rocked  and  dandled  on 
the  lap  of  wealth  ?  No  ;  such  men  emerge  from  the 
homes  of  decent  competence  or  struggling  poverty. 
Necessity  sharpens  their  faculties  and  privation  and 
sacrifice  brace  their  moral  nature.  They  learn  the 
great  art  of  renunciation,  and  enjoy  the  happiness  of 
having  few  wants.  They  know  nothing  of  indiffer 
ence  or  satiety.  There  is  not  an  idle  fibre  in  their 
frames.  They  put  the  vigor  of  a  resolute  purpose 
into  every  act.  The  edge  of  their  minds  is  always 
kept  sharp.  In  the  shocks  of  life,  men  like  these 
meet  the  softly-nurtured  darlings  of  prosperity  as  the 
vessel  of  iron  meets  the  vessel  of  porcelain.  Lift 
your  hearts  above  the  region  of  wild  hopes  and 
cowardly  fears.  Put  on  that  even  temper  of  mind 
which  shall  be  a  shadow  in  success  and  a  light  in 
adversity.  If  wealth  and  distinction  come,  receive 
them  in  a  thankful  and  moderate  spirit.  If  they  do 
not  come,  fill  their  places  with  better  guests.  Re 
member  that  all  which  truly  exalts  and  ennobles  a 
man  is  bound  to  him  by  ties  as  indissoluble  as  those 
which  link  the  planets  to  the  sun.  Plant  yourselves 
upon  God's  immutable  laws,  and  fortune  and  failure 


38 

will  be  no  more  than  vapors  that  curl  and  play  far 
beneath  your  feet. 

Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Mercantile 
Library  Association,  in  preparing  these  desultory 
remarks,  I  have  thought  of  you,  and  you  alone. 
What  I  have  written  has  been  prompted  by  a  sincere 
interest  in  your  welfare.  I  can  never  look  upon  an 
assemblage  of  ingenuous  young  men  without  in 
voluntary  greetings  and  benedictions.  The  beauty 
of  promise  lies  upon  them  like  blossoms  on  the  tree. 
You  have  reason  to  rejoice  in  your  youth.  Shaks- 
peare,  in  one  of  his  sublimest  passages,  makes  Lear 
appeal  for  sympathy  to  the  heavens,  because  they 
were  old  like  him.  Between  you  and  the  world 
around  you  there  is  a  similar  affinity.  The  land  in 
which  you  live  is  young.  There  is  nothing  in  the 
past  of  the  Old  World  so  magnificent  as  our  future. 
It  is  a  noble  thing  to  feel  ourselves  cast,  not  upon 
the  decrepitude  of  Time,  but  upon  his  unwrinkled 
youth ;  not  rotting  idly  upon  the  shore,  but  borne 
upon  the  topmost  crest  of  the  dancing  wave.  We 
welcome  you  to  this  boundless  and  exulting  future. 
No  feudal  barriers  check  your  progress ;  no  teasing 
prescriptions  clog  your  steps;  no  worn-out  usages 
block  your  path.  The  world  is  your  field,  and  your 
mansion  is  vaulted  and  walled  with  the  covering 
heavens.  We  welcome  you  to  a  community  slow 


39 

alike  to  give  and  to  withdraw  its  confidence.  We 
welcome  you  to  the  bracing  air  of  competition,  and 
to  the  golden  harvests  of  opportunity.  We  welcome 
you  to  the  discipline  of  industry  and  patience,  to 
the  rewards  of  enterprise  and  skill,  to  the  refining 
influences  of  books  and  society,  to  the  sweets  of 
domestic  life,  to  the  light  of  everlasting  truth. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 

Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


»AY  11  1948 


M  DEFT.- 


JA 


MAR  2  3  1981    9 


-100m-9,'47(A5702sl6)476 


1 


Pamphlet 

Binder 
Gaylord  Bros. 

Makers 
Syracuse,  N.  Y. 

PAT.  JAN  21,1908 


YC 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRAF 


